And it was only 15 days ago

"Plutocracy has no philosophy, no morals, no meaning:
It can only have material success,
In other words, a despicable success."
Gilbert Keith Chesterton

This Saturday morning marks just two weeks since we woke up, first and foremost, to the news of the bombings of Caracas—nearly 100 deaths, unpunished and already forgotten. Then, with radios on and mobile phones constantly connected, like those days when everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing, we heard the live broadcast of the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. So much could have happened, and it's still surprising how little actually did. The next day, that is, the cartel The name Los Soles disappeared from the prosecution's indictment. Only oil and ideology remained. putsch From Trump. Circle the tale. And yes: it's only been 15 days since the Donroe Doctrine—and two centuries since the Monroe Doctrine. And yet, it already seems like an eternity—both the fifteen days and the two centuries. On the tightrope of the cannibalistic raffle of the new year, the thick doubt of who will be next to receive: Greenland, Iran, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Gaza again, or Ukraine again. And the EU playing the fool. 2026 has begun with the jumble of confusion, the farewell to yesterday's world, and teetering along several cliffs whose destination we'll see, because if we already know how the year has started, the important thing is to get involved so that it doesn't end as some intend. Pornographically, there is this brutal declaration from Lieutenant Stephen Miller, both inside and outside the walls, which has blown everything up: "The real world is governed by force and power: these are the iron laws of the world." The brutality being justified is everywhere: Delta Force is now the global equivalent of what ICE is at home. The same cruelty, inside and out, but with resistance both within and outside the country. And with Renee Nicole Good killed by an agent who had fought in Iraq. When Trump kills equally at home and abroad.

Closer to home, or perhaps so far away despite happening on the corner of our country, seven homeless people have lost their lives: they died on the streets, in the midst of a cold snap, between early December and early January in the metropolitan area, while the number of homeless people in Barcelona—1,982—is breaking all-time records. A country in a state of hypothermia: everything happens, yet nothing changes. The Christmas celebration at the B9 Institute also seems distant—where are all those evicted, and what has become of their precarious lives? We continue to top—uninterruptedly since 2010—the ranking of families evicted, at a rate of 25 per day. The banks are once again announcing billion-euro profits, close to 34 billion euros, a new record high. Farmers are raising their voices and blocking the streets, for a thousand reasons, in protest against the Mercosur agreement being signed today. And when it's not African swine fever, it's nodular dermatosis, bluetongue, or avian flu. Add to that the statement by the vice president of Doctors of Catalonia, claiming that "Vox is the only political group that defends us." They said this at a press conference in the Catalan Parliament, alongside the far-right, ultramontane party. Later, the union issued a denial, rejecting any alliance and distancing itself from the confusion generated, which does little to help the universal cause of quality public health, always on exhausting alert.

And meanwhile, two news stories together, as the saying goes, they're better understood. Yesterday this was more than evident and blatant. On the one hand, the meeting that businessman Emili Cuatrecasas is organizing with Sílvia Orriols and 200 guests for the end of the month in the Baix Empordà region. It doesn't seem out of place to me, in contemporary and historical terms, but I need a reminder. Cuatrecasas himself was sentenced to two years in prison for eight tax fraud offenses. The same Cuatrecasas law firm that surfaced in the Wikileaks documents, in a cable from the American embassy in Madrid, where a prosecutor named Grinda asked: "Why does Cuatrecasas keep defending members of the Russian mafia?" Meanwhile, the other news item of the same day, in this same newspaper, reported on the new pro-worker strategy that the far right has adopted to, having saturated the PP's voter base, address the housing issue and, in a countermeasure, open a channel for dozens of racists among left-wing voters, blaming everything on migrants, feminists, or the most moderate environmentalists. "We will take a detour," Camus anticipated in his letters to his German friend. "It is of little use to criticize fascism," Brecht warned, "if one does not criticize the capitalism that generates it in times of crisis." Just yesterday, the indispensable Fina Birulés, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Hannah Arendt's death, reminded us that the word freedom We're handing it all over to the far right, and the colossal mistake is reducing the global chaos to a simplistic issue of "psychopaths." No: 80 million people voted for Trump. And a recent tweet from a victim of Nazism reminded us of this: my family wasn't killed by Himmler or Goebbels, they were taken by the neighbor.

And finally, what didn't happen in 15 days, nor in 15 years, is this issue of unique financing, from a dual Catalan perspective. Catalonia outside –it seems we have champagne and caviar for breakfast– and Catalonia inside. Catalonia outside, the lightning that never stopsBut since the trendy accounting terms shaking up the debate are adjusted population and real population, allow me to adjust the data, given that it's the week of the bearded ones: 17% of Catalan society begins the year as it ended it: at risk of social exclusion. According to a recent ESADE report, 50% of the population possesses 5% of the country's wealth; the richest 10% holds 59%. As if nothing had changed—as if everything had. But since there are more twists and turns and greater inequalities ahead, a powerful duo, Yayo Herrero and Santiago Alba Rico, have joined forces, seeking a catapult, shelter, and fireflies. The good Yayo says that we must counter-paraphrase Aznar every day so as not to fall into the trap of a fatalistic defeatism that serves the interests of the engineers of chaos. And that's why Yayo suggests that whoever can, however little, should do it and never stop doing it, more and more each day, on all the open democratic fronts—no defeat, none, by default. Santi reinforces his advice, maintaining that in a "world that is now unknown" we should do, at the very least, three things: get to know it, make friends with strangers, and never be alone, not even to think. So as never to bow our heads in the age of predators, the doctrine of brutality, and the unleashed storm. Let uprisings be announced left and right, and right and left.